In mid-June I purchased a Motorola Droid. There was a time when I couldn’t fathom a reason for me to own a smartphone; I used my prior mobile phones for calls and rarely, texts. To drop hundreds of dollars on a phone plus an extra ~$30 a month for a data plan seemed frivolous to say the least. The sentiment changed when I saw a friend’s Droid in action. I was amazed. Despite my technical aptitude, mobile phones were not my strong point, so the functionality and niftiness of the Droid provided took me by surprise.
Purchasing a Droid wasn’t an impulse decision, however. It was largely due to my intrigue of the prospect of having yet another Linux(-like) system to tinker with.
Despite my affinity toward tinkering, however, I’m wary of rooting my phone. That is, altering it to obtain unrestricted control of its function… primarily because I’ve yet to be convinced the binaries, etc. to do so are benevolent. I rely on my phone and thus am reluctant to trust the How-Tos copypasta’d around the intertubes which lack sufficient explanation of the rooting process.
Alright, enough background information.
As I resolved to not root my Droid, I sought applications from the Android Market to augment its functionality. The most impressive I’ve installed so far is Tasker. It blows Timeriffic, an app I used previously, out of the water and puts an inferior paid app, Locale, to shame. The magnitude of granularity Tasker provides is astounding. The most complicated task I’ve conjured up so far is:
Mute all sounds and cease all vibrations during my sleeping hours unless my fiancée calls.
Child’s play. Tasker is capable of much more. This relatively simple task scrapes the tip of the Tasker iceberg.
I take that back. I haven’t scraped the tip of the iceberg, I’ve merely flown over it and said, “Oh, that’s neat.” It will probably be several days until I fully realize Tasker’s potential.
I’ve read Tasker users have complained the app is buggy and complicated. As if. The interface is straightforward and dialogues provide informative explanations of their workings. Apparently the practice of pressing a question mark to learn about a particular function is beyond the comprehension of some. If you aren’t such a person and seek to expand upon your Android phone’s versatility, I recommend giving Tasker a try.
